Live Coals
by opheliacs
Summary: There is a line in the sand which he won't cross and which you don't have the heart to. You don't know how it happened, but you're somehow together, and you will hold on with everything you have because it's too good to let go. (E/E modern-AU connected drabbles based off the songs from Next to Normal.)
1. Chapter 1

**Prelude**

Skinny legs shimmy into torn stockings and haphazard clothing. She washes the blood from her split lip and expertly covers the bruises. She leaves a pot of porridge on the stove for her sister and brothers, wakes them up for school, and picks the glass off the floor before she steps into the crisp winter air.

He steps into expensive jeans and a well-fitting sweater. He fixes his own breakfast, and had he not been so used to it, he might have asked himself when he last saw a human being he was related to. He sees her waiting on the ledge by the stairs to his house, a cigarette dangling between her lips. Ice blue eyes meet hazel gold. He gives her a mug of coffee, a smile, and the dignity of not mentioning the bruise on her cheekbone.

**Just Another Day**

"You know it's a Tuesday, right?"

"Shut up and drink the tequila."

"I don't even _like _tequila."

"Neither do I."

"But—"

"Don't question it. It's our thing. So. My dad's disappointed because I don't want to sell drugs for him and his cronies."

"My dad's disappointed because I'm an embarrassment, a failure, and a disgrace to the good name of Enjolras."

"Ah. Just another day, then."

"We all joke that we'll be dead before we meet our parents' approval. For you and me, I think it's literally true."

"Just another reason why this works. Pass the tequila."

**Everything Else**

Éponine looked at the score on the top of her calculus test and laughed without humor. _Great. "I'll let you retake it if you can come in at seven tomorrow morning," _the professor said, and he was doing her a favor, she knew. How was she supposed to explain to him that she hadn't been able to study for the real test because she had been busy bailing her father out of jail and that her younger siblings had been seized by Child Protective Services? Right. She couldn't. Because professors' collective job is to grade their students hard enough that they drop out in sheer frustration, not care about their personal lives.

She found Enjolras on that same bench he always used. At this point she'd be surprised if there weren't permanent Enjolras-shaped indentions worked into the wood. Her legs find their way thrown across his lap. "Do you ever ask yourself why we stay in this city?"

He gives her a wry smile. "Because at least for right now, we can't think of anywhere else to go."

**Who's Crazy?**

Her knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel. His are white from balling his fists in frustration and a little bit of terror from her driving. "I don't understand why you're so upset—Jesus _Christ _will you please pay attention?!"

Even more terrifying than her driving is that she's now _looking away from the road to side-eye him Christ why didn't they just take a cab,_ and if looks could kill, he would be a well-dead man. "Enjolras. Were we at the same protest? Or, did you like, daydream your way through the whole thing?"

He most certainly did _not _daydream through the whole thing, it was _his _protest, for fucks sake, and he's genuinely not sure how she's managed to avoid sideswiping someone. He suppresses a shudder. The BQE gave him nightmares on a good day. Driving that wasn't his gave him nightmares on a good day. The two combined were catastrophic. He dimly realizes Éponine is still talking, shouting, really, with her rough, husky voice.

She slams one hand on top of the steering wheel in tandem with pounding the horn at someone who cuts her off. "Are you even _listening _to me?" He opens his mouth, but words don't come out of it fast enough. "A _felony, _Enjolras. You could have been charged with a _felony. _Do you have any idea what this country does to convicted felons? No driving, no job, no voting, you'd get kicked out of college, you'd never go to grad school." She slams on the brakes and lets out a steady stream of inventive curse words—he catches 'fucktrumpet' and 'asswagon'—as an especially large and slow-moving car veers in front of her.

"You _know _that officer could have been charged with assault against _me, _and it could have been self-defense, Éponine," he says annoyedly, swallowing hard to keep himself from puking on the floor.

She's digging her nails into the wheel so hard that he's surprised the leather hasn't torn. "Enjolras," she grinds out through clenched teeth, "I hate cops as much as you do and probably _more, _but if you think anyone would have believed you were defending yourself, you are an idiot, and you're way too smart for that."

He can't stop himself. "Isn't a little rich for _you _to be telling _me _how to conduct myself around figures of authority?"

Her jaw snaps shut. Later, he will want to take it back. Right now, he seethes and tries to block out her horrific driving and the sound of Wilco blaring through the crackling speakers.

**Perfect for You**

He is stoic, marble, and passionately dedicated to the betterment of humanity. She is contradictory, erratic, caustic, and dedicated to survival. She's fiercely loyal and protective of the people she's close to, but people are very seldom allowed to get that close. It's not callousness, she explains, it's self-preservation, or whatever she has left that passes for it. But for some reason, she lets him, of all people, get close. It's because he doesn't pry, doesn't try to baby her, generally trusts her to take care of herself, but has a sixth sense for knowing when she can't.

He forgets to eat and stays up for fifty-six hours straight during finals. She wordlessly makes egg sandwiches and pots upon pots of strong coffee and covers him up when he collapses on the couch after his last final. She sleeps through her alarm and is reduced to incoherent frustration at the set of physics problems in front of her. He buys a coffee pot with an automatic timer to entice her out of bed with the scent and strokes the knots out of her shoulders with a tenderness that still scares her. She isn't used to it, but part of her hopes she never is, lest she take it for granted.

**I Miss the Mountains**

Éponine doesn't know who else to talk to. She wants it to be Cosette, but she knows that given what she wants to talk about, it would be awkward. Likewise with Grantaire. So she goes to Musichetta, who has an incredible knack for making the world feel right.

"He's not perfect."

"Oh, honey, who ever told you he would be?" Musichetta's green eyes are full of compassion.

"No, I mean…" Éponine picks at the fraying edge of her skirt. "I don't _want _him to be perfect. I need someone who reminds me of me and how fucked up _I _can be. But it's just…"

"Stable," Chetta says for her. "It's functional."

"Yeah."

"And…?"

She sighs heavily. "Sometimes it's so easy. I don't know what to do with easy. I miss things being a struggle. I know how to fight and struggle."

"Like with Marius not loving you back. Or Montparnasse..."

"Exactly. Exactly like that."

**It's Gonna Be Good**

They've been reluctant to put a label on whatever they have—he because he doesn't want to acknowledge anything that might detract from his double-major, his student organizations, and his petitions and protests; she because she doesn't want to acknowledge anything that would draw her away from her siblings or make them think they're less important, and she wonders if she's ready to let go of Marius. Loving Marius is easy. He is a straightforward and simple person. Loving Enjolras is like loving electric light, or perhaps the sun: he can't be contained, he has incredible power blooming just beneath the surface, and he is blazing, brilliant, burning.

Loving Éponine is like loving the moon: cliché as it sounds, she has a mystery about her that is hard to unravel. She holds herself at a distance and only reveals what she wants you to know; she's adept at spinning out of reach when people overreach themselves. She is vivacious and capable of being frighteningly cold.

Neither of them have the slightest concept of how it happened, but they're relatively positive that they're _together, _sun and moon.

They don't know if it'll work. But they will try, because it's too good to let go.

**He's Not Here**

"I'm not Marius."

"I know."

"I'm in love with you."

"I know."

"But you're not in love with me."

"I didn't say that."

"Are you?"

"I don't know."

"That's okay."


	2. Chapter 2

**You Don't Know**

Éponine was late to the study group, but at least she came at all—the closer she got to high school graduation the less she could be bothered to care to do anything. She was going to graduate, and she probably wasn't going to get into college, so what was the point in anything else? She ducked behind a shelf in the library and straightened her clothes, ran a hand through her perpetually straggly hair, and prayed she didn't have food in her teeth. Marius' laughter rang out just slightly too loud from a few tables over, and the slow creep of a grin grew across her face. Tiptoeing to the edge of the shelf, she peeked over at Marius' table. She was already late to the study group. What difference was a few minutes more?

Marius sat with one of his friends—Éponine wasn't totally sure of his name, but it was something sort of weird and it started with a C. His gingery hair stood straight up due to his habit of constantly running his hands through it. She could see the heavy dusting of freckles over his cheekbones. His friend made some sort of joke with a wicked twist to his lips and Marius flushed red to the roots of his hair. "Well," he coughed, "it's not as if we're going to get married, I haven't even talked to her!"

"What do you even _know _about her, Pontmercy?"

Marius sighed. "She is absolutely the most beautiful woman in the entire world."

Éponine's heart pulsed painfully and she bit her lip.

"What about your friend Éponine?" his friend teased. "She's sort of pretty, and I think she likes you…"

Éponine's hands involuntarily clenched into fists. _Watch yourself, Curly Hair…_

Marius' face scrunched in confusion. "Éponine…? Really? You think? I mean, she's alright, I guess, but…she's _Ponine! _I mean, I've known her since we were kids!" He laughed lightly.

Cold anger washed over Éponine like a wave and she stepped out of her hiding face, clearing her throat loudly. Curly Hair's head snapped up, and his eyes darted from Marius to Éponine and back again. Marius looked horrified. "Ponine, I…"

"Go fuck yourself."

"But, Ponine, you don't underst—" But she was already gone, flying out the double doors and pulling her jacket around her like a barrier.

_No, you don't understand. You don't know anything._

**I Am the One**

You know that it's the running joke that you are stoic, marble, and incapable of emotion that relates to people you _actually _know. Your passions lie with the poor and downtrodden and your eye is fixed on a perfect future. That's what your friends think, anyway. And almost all of the time, they're correct. It drives you absolutely crazy when they're not, and right now is one of those times.

She is the most infuriating person you know.

You're not jealous. The very idea is preposterous. You don't even _like _Pontmercy. He's an annoying rich boy who is completely oblivious to the world around him. Due to his father and some kind of personal favor, he's an ardent supporter of the conservative party, despite having absolutely no idea what it really entails. You have absolutely no concept of what she sees in him because the few times you've talked to him, he seemed to be a pretty boring conversationalist. You honestly can't work out whether he's genuinely interested in her stories or whether he's just being polite, and that's annoying. He's hurt her deeply, and that's annoying. She let him, and that's annoying.

And you _care, _and that's the most annoying thing of all. You care. You care more than anything when he talks about his precious blonde angel who goes to Julliard, and you care when she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. You care when she doesn't sleep for two days because she's obsessively revising an English essay so she can get the A and graduate. You care when she shows up battered on your doorstep. You care that she smokes because you can't stand it and you care that she drinks because she only does it when she's sad. But you don't know how to tell her that. You don't even know what all of this means. You've known her since you were kids. You're just friends. So you let her sleep on your couch and pillage your parents' fridge and you push sweatshirts and hot beverages at her and hope it's enough.

**Superboy and the Invisible Girl**

"Ponine, do you ever feel like you're always in someone's shadow?"

"How do you mean, Zel?"

"Well…there's that guy you liked, and he didn't even notice you."

"…_Thank _you for reminding me."

"And there's that guy you like now."

"I don't like anyone."

"Yeah, right. That's why you got arrested at a protest and you couldn't even remember what you were protesting."

"Don't you have homework or something?"

"What _did_ you get arrested for, anyway?"

"Go away."

**I'm Alive**

He is not Marius. You know it, and so does he. That's what keeps you from dispelling the crackling electricity of tension that thrums between the two of you when you're talking on the subway and suddenly you go from discussing Hugo Chavez to feeling this pull in your gut and the sensation that you're falling into eyes the color of the sea. That's what keeps him from being too easy with casual touches, almost as if it hurts him down to his bones to brush his skin against yours for very long. Rules are rules. There is a line in the sand which he won't cross and which you don't have the heart to.

He is not Marius. He does not moon over the girl who stole your coveted window armchair at the café. He doesn't harass you day and night with texts agonizing about the latest blushing smile, furtive glance, touch of fingertips, begging you to interpret what it might mean, as if you're some sort of expert on what constitutes normal human behavior. He is the only one of your group of friends who doesn't seem impressed that Marius' girlfriend isn't as dull as a piece of furniture, and, secretly, he does an impression of her that night that makes you laugh til your sides ache.

He is not Marius. You kiss him on the rooftop on New Year's Eve of your senior year of high school in the bitter cold and he tastes like the cinnamon whiskey he nicked from his parents' cupboard. He leans his forehead against yours and rubs noses with you, accidentally giving both of you a shock of static electricity. He is not Marius, but it doesn't matter, because he makes you feel alive.

**Catch Me I'm Falling**

"I got in," she breathes, her eyes burning like live coals, holding her acceptance letter in trembling fingers. "I did it."

He goes unnaturally still, memorizing her face like this, her golden brown eyes misty and her cheeks flushed and her _smile,_ god, that smile could light the city on fire. Something clicks and he just knows right then that he will always love her. She gasps when he kisses her and his thoughts weave into streams of water. They are a dichotomy of gentle and fierce. His very bones dissolve into liquid and he floats, spinning and spiraling in a place only they can reach.

They lay curled together like open arms, and he memorizes how her hair has a tendency to congeal in an impossible knot in the back, how her cheeks and nose have faint freckles like pinpricks, how she has a scar cut into her forehead from smacking into the pavement at that protest where she got arrested for defending him. "I love you, Éponine."

"I love you, too." She surges forward to crash her lips against his before he has time to process his surprise. It's the first time she's said it back.

**I Dreamed a Dance**

A few years ago, Éponine would have been bitter that the first dance in her life would be for Marius and Cosette's engagement. Now she just wondered if she'd look stupid because she had absolutely no idea how to dance.

"What do you mean you've never been to a dance?" Enjolras asked with a cock of his eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I've never been to a dance! Don't tell me _you've _been to one."

He gave a long-suffering sigh. "I've been to a few. Do you want to learn how to dance?"

She shook her head vehemently. "I'm not going to dance."

"What else does one do at an engagement _dance?" _he asked, scanning his music collection for something suitable.

"Sit in the corner and talk of revolutions with Combeferre," she grinned wickedly, remembering the last party they went to that had more people in attendance than their usual group.

"Hide in the kitchen and drink with Grantaire," he countered. "Come here, then, mademoiselle." He took her waist and one of her hands and began to waltz her around. She tripped over his feet a few times and tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, she was _waltzing _in bare feet with _Enjolras, _of all people, and he was really rather good.

Slowly she relaxed into the music and smiled up at him. "We are _not _having a _dance party _for our engagement."

He snorted. "What makes you think I want to marry you?" he said dryly.

"Tyrant."

**There's a World**

It's way too early and Enjolras is grinning in her face with a cup of coffee in each hand. "We're getting out of this city."

She has no idea where he got the car. She didn't even know he knew how to drive; she'd never learned, because there wasn't much point to learning in a city with an excellent public transport system and she'd never been able to afford a car. After Philadelphia he pulls off and finds a parking lot of a closed-down shopping mall so he can teach her to drive. Once he's sure she knows right from left and which pedals are which, he directs her back to the interstate, which is the most terrifying and exhilarating thing she's ever done in her life. Mercifully the road isn't too crowded, and they both soon that Éponine is a chronic speeder. She absolutely refuses to drive the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel once Enjolras warns her about it. He does that part and she spends the entire twenty-six miles with his camera plastered to the window, in absolute awe at being right on top of the water.

Always a man with a plan, Enjolras has the car loaded up with camping gear. "So that we never have to leave the beach," he explains with the barest hint of a smile, and the look she gives him makes his chest ache.

She's seen the sea, sort of. She's been to Staten Island. Nothing prepares her for the Outer Banks. "It's so _quiet," _she keeps saying, though not without some delight. She stares at the ocean until her eyes hurt from trying to pick out where it ends. The wind shrieks and smells like salt. They lay on their backs and she makes up new constellations, and she feels this strange trembly feeling that makes her want to cry, if she cried, of course, because she's never seen anything as beautiful as the ocean and the night sky and the gritty brown sand and Enjolras under the moon.

"We never have to leave, right?"

"We'll come back."

"Every year?"

"If we can."

**I've Been**

"What do you _mean _you can't write the editorial for the protest?" Enjolras asks. His voice is low and dangerous, and his eyes are icy enough to freeze the sun. He's not shouting. Shouting would be better. You know how to deal with shouting, especially since you shout back. This quiet anger is unnerving and you don't know what to do.

"I told you, I have to go to court, and I don't have time," you say tiredly.

"You keep saying you have to go to court, but you won't say why…"

_Yeah, that's deliberate, you idiot. _"I don't want to talk about it."

"Court only takes a few hours, right? So why can't you write the editorial?"

_You asked for it, _you silently warn him. "Because I'm trying to build a case for myself. Because I'm going to court to try to get custody of my sister and brothers, and I'm legally incompetent due to the number of times I've been _arrested. _At _protests." _ You don't blame him. You really don't. He was the one who made you feel like you were worth something. He was the one who made you feel like things could change and that people have power. But you can't tell if he's really obtuse or if he doesn't see that there is more to life than his protests, which have rendered you legally blacklisted from several jobs and possibly from getting your siblings out of foster care.

He stares at you. You smile bitterly. "So don't you ever say I never did anything for you and your protests, Enj."

Combeferre writes the editorial instead. It is good, meticulously researched in a way yours wouldn't have been, but you silently think it's lacking a certain passion.

You lose the custody battle. You suspect that Enjolras blames himself, but you knew what you were getting into with this, with him, with letting him into your life. And, as you tell him when you find the end of the bottle of tequila that night, if not for him, you probably would have been arrested as many times at this point in your life for things far less admirable, like stealing and trespassing.

Enjolras' next cause is a tirade against the Child Protective Services system and the legal age of adulthood, how families of people with criminal histories are unfairly victimized, and how custody courts don't take into consideration the _reason _for arrests of people willing to take guardianship of people in foster care. You kiss him til you're both bruised.


	3. Chapter 3

**Didn't I See This Movie?**

"It's my turn to pick," Éponine says lazily, rolling her head in Enjolras' lap to meet his eyes.

"Absolutely not," he jokes, "because last time you picked, I sat through a three-hour documentary about _penguins._"

"And last time you picked, I sat through Fahrenheit 9/11…_again!_"

"Okay, I have an idea." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes his finger across the screen a few times and pulling up a random-number generator. "Seven," he says, shaking her off his lap.

"What?"

"We'll both pick a movie, starting at opposite ends of the shelf, and we'll count seven-in."

It seems fair enough. After a year of living together, the lines between them are blurred. They no longer bother to put their movies on separate shelves, and she dropped one of her books amidst his section of classics and he didn't bother to move it. Her fingers dance along the spines of the DVD boxes and her lips twist into a wicked grin at lucky number seven. Enjolras groans. His fingers land on Atonement; hers on RENT. "Fair is fair," she sings sweetly, kissing his cheek.

"How did we manage to both land on movies that are yours," he grumbles, and she settles into his arms contentedly, humming the opening bars of Seasons of Love.

**A Light in the Dark**

Éponine has taken boots in the back and facefuls of pavement for you. The thought amazes you. She always brushes it off, saying she had worse when she lived at home—and don't you know how true it is. That's what makes it so amazing, you think, that she would voluntarily take proverbial bullets after being forced to take so many. You're not _completely _obtuse, as your friends often proclaim. You know that there are times that her presence by your side at rallies and meetings is more for you than for the cause at hand. But she is so incredibly fierce that she burns like fire when the cause is something she cares for.

Prouvaire has a saying about her: the girl of ashes with a heart of gold.

**Wish I Were Here**

He knows there's something wrong before he even opens the door.

The sound of screams and smashing glass echoes through the hallway and he pushes the door open hesitantly. Music with a heavy beat is blaring through the speakers, which he can barely hear over the sound of Éponine's shrieking. Enjolras cuts the music and Éponine pauses, an old mug suspended in her hands. Tears and runny makeup stream down her face and she brings the mug down hard on the kitchen floor. "Éponine, what"—

Before he can get out the words, she wilts against the countertop and slowly sinks to the floor, next to the battleground of crockery shards. The absence of her roughened keening is more unnerving than the keening itself. She crumples into herself, head on knees and arms wrapped around legs to contain the shaking that threatens to pull her apart. He picks his way through the landmines in the kitchen and sits next to her, reaching for her, but she slides sideways. It's then that he notices the crumpled paper locked in her fist. She hands it to him wordlessly, staring straight ahead, eyes glassy and unseeing.

He skims the torn-out newspaper article quickly. Drive-by shooting. Accidental victim. Believed to be confused for a rival gang member. Family unable to be located. He swallows hard and realizes he, too, is shaking. His hand finds hers ad she slowly turns her lamplike eyes on his. "I had to find out through the newspaper," she whispers. "I had to read about my brother's death in the fucking newspaper."

She lies next to him in bed, won't let him touch her, won't speak or move. The next morning, she's gone, like ashes into dust.

**Song of Forgetting**

"Didn't expect to see you 'round here anymore, Ponine."

"I have money."

"That's a first."

"Fuck off, Parnasse."

"What do you want?"

"What do you have that will make it stop hurting?"

She takes the bitter pill between her lips as the memories seep from her veins.

**Hey #1**

"This is Éponine. I can't come to the phone right now, but leave me a message."

"Hey…it's me. It's been a week since the funeral and nobody's seen you. I, uh, I don't know what to say. Weird, huh? Listen, um, I just want you to know…I love you. I'm here whenever you're ready to come home. …Please, please, come home. I know I can't make this better, but I, um…fuck. I love you, Éponine. Bye."

**Seconds and Years**

Éponine wakes up when the heavy front door slams. The duvet pools around her narrow shoulders and she rubs at her eyes, not realizing how deeply she'd slept. She waits with baited breath as Enjolras' steady footsteps beat out a familiar rhythm on the floor. She hasn't been home for two weeks but the patterns are embossed into her brain. _There's his backpack hitting the floor in the study. Now he's pouring a glass of lemonade. Now he's coming into the bedroom to change clothes_. He doesn't startle at the sight of her in bed, as if he had always expected to find her there, although she knows him too well to believe he was free of doubt.

"Hi," he says.

"Hello." She winces at the gravelly sound of her own voice, rusty from disuse.

He gestures to the bed. "May I?" She nods and he slides in next to her, watching, but not reaching for her. The sun filters in through the streaky window, playing in his bright blue eyes. She lets her own eyes flutter shut as the last of her resolve turns to ashes.

Seconds or years later, she says, "We have known each other for years."

"Yes, we have."

She squeezes her eyes shut. _So sick of crying. _"I don't usually know people for years." She doesn't want him to feel sorry for her. It's just a fact.

"Are you disappointed?" he jokes.

For the first time in weeks, she smiles. It's not big, or long-lasting, but it's there. It's a start.

**Better than Before**

He notices little things about her that he's never noticed before, and they seem so incredibly obvious that he's not sure how he's missed them. She has an insatiable urge to pick at things. She'll have one rough edge on her lip and bite it til it bleeds. One chip on her nail polish and she'll scratch singlemindedly til she's clawed off every trace of color. Once she left for a lecture with seemingly brand-new stockings and came home looking like she'd fallen down a flight of stairs, all because she'd found one loose thread.

He notices other things, too, since she came back, since Gavroche died. She surprises him one morning with oeufs en cocotte, his favorite. She swaps out the mournful, wailing Lana del Rey or pounding beats of the Sex Pistols for calmer, quieter music, which may be her own desire, but the added solitude helps him immensely in editing his dissertation. He notices one morning that her hair no longer smells like the verbena that made his head hurt, but something like lemon and lavender.

It hits him late one night over his fifth cup of coffee that she has been doing this on purpose to try to make up to him and he is so colossally, unforgivably _stupid._

He wakes her gently, as she has a tendency to fly awake with fists and shouts when startled. She grumbles and swears and tries to pull the duvet over her head, but his hands snake around her skinny wrists, his bone-white fingers contrasting with her tawny skin. When he's sure he has her attention, he leans in, resting his forehead against hers and breathing in the scent of her, counting the cinnamon sprinkle freckles on her cheeks. He doesn't know how to make the words come out, so he kisses her cheeks, forehead, nose, lips, wrists, hoping he can tell her through this that there is nothing she could ever do to make him love her less.

**Aftershocks**

"I have class at 8 am."

"And I have a meeting with my dissertation advisor. Pass the tequila."

"I _still _don't like tequila."

"And it's still our thing. You first."

"I'm pretty sure I can officially count myself as disowned since my name got attached to that massive graffiti mural near Wall Street."

"Even though anyone who knows you knows that you have no artistic ability whatsoever…?"

"Disowned. You?"

My mom didn't show up to the funeral arranging meeting today. She was drunk."

"…Okay, you win."

"Pass the tequila, will you?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey #2**

"This is Gabriel Enjolras. If you would like to know more about the Society of the ABC, please visit our website. Otherwise, please leave a message with your name and number, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

"I swear to God, every time I call you, your voicemail message gets even _longer._ Hey, just wanted to remind you that it's okay to take a few days off every now and then. Actually, you should count on it—next week, Thursday through Monday. That's why I'm calling. To make sure you get a substitute. God knows there are enough grad students running around to cover a few lectures. And don't you _dare _say you're too busy. Come home for dinner and I'll make something good. Love you."

**How Could I Ever Forget?**

Enjolras should have known that taking a few days off where Éponine was involved wouldn't involve sleeping in.

"It's four in the goddamn morning, Éponine."

She's hovering over him with a grin like a tiger hunting its prey. "It's not my fault that you couldn't finish grad school last year like some of us."

He _could _pull her down against him. Instead he serves a pillow into her face and she lets out a squeak of rage. "I have something to make this early wake-up worth your while," she purrs in his ear, not to be deterred.

"The only thing that will make it worth my while is if you go away and let me sleep."

She groans. "It was going to be a surprise, but if I tell you that you can sleep in the car and that we're going to the beach for the weekend, will you _please _stop being an intolerable asshole?" He sits up and blinks at her, making sure she's not kidding. Her smile doesn't falter. "I even packed and made coffee already."

Slowly he smiles in return. "You are a gift from the gods."

She saunters towards the door with a cocky grin. "I know."

True to her promise, she offers to drive the first stretch and let him sleep a little longer. He's close to falling asleep before they even get out of the city, but there's a niggling thought at the back of his head that he can't seem to pin down. Éponine makes a familiar turn and it hits him _hard. _He swallows in remembrance. "Hey, do you think we could maybe take a different way out of the city than the BQE—oh, for fucks _sake," _he groans. It's too late. And of course the godforsaken highway is crowded.

"Nope," Éponine says, popping the 'p' and smirking. "Just go to sleep, Enj."

**Why Stay?**

_It was an accident. _She's said the words so many times that they're embossed in her mouth like cotton and lies. It was _sort _of an accident that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone who knew the Patron-Minette knew it wasn't really an accident. The Patron-Minette never did anything by accident.

They were going to dinner. It was an accident. Babet was in the alley. It was an accident. She agreed to testify against her father, who was arrested. It was an accident. Enjolras' head was split open. It was an accident.

"You should go home and get some rest."

Éponine lifts her head from the hospital bed and blinks at Combeferre, scrubbing at her eyes with her hands and smudging her eyeliner. "I need to be here when he wakes up."

Combeferre hesitates in the doorway. "We don't know when that'll be," he says gently.

"So it could be in five minutes or it could be in five days, but if _you're _leaving him, then for fucks sake _someone _ought to be here," she snaps, and he recoils slightly. "Look, I'm sorry," she grumbles, reaching for the thermos of coffee. "I just…I need to be here, you know?" _Because it's my fault. _"And I'm not in med school, so I require slightly less sleep than you do."

He smiles gratefully and leaves, and Éponine waits, tearing the knitted edge of the hospital blanket into shreds and determinedly not looking at the row of stitches on Enjolras' head.

**The Break**

"Éponine."

"Mmph."

"Éponine!"

"Go 'way."

"Ép, you have to go to court today."

"No, I'm not going," she groans, pulling the duvet over her head.

"What do you mean you're not going?" Enjolras pulls the duvet back with a snap and she glares at him with a shiver.

"I decided I wasn't going to do it after what happened in the alley," she sighs.

He blinks as if this is the most absurd and unrelated thing in the world. "What?"

"It was one of my dad's cronies that beat you and gave me a black eye. For agreeing to testify. They found out. They will _always _find out."

"But your father will be declared guilty, and with your testimony, the rest of his gang will be indicted," Enjolras says confidently.

Éponine rolls her eyes. "I'm so glad that for people with money, the justice system works the way it's supposed to," she says bitterly, seeing the heat rise in Enjolras' cheeks.

"You know I don't live like that. Not anymore."

"Do you have any idea what would happen to me _or _you if I went to testify against my father? Do you? Let's pretend that either of us _don't _get bludgeoned to death in an alleyway. It'll most certainly involve the witness protection program, and that would be really inconvenient, and I don't know about you, but I for one am not about to discredit the possibility that we, you know, get beaten or stabbed to death in an alley, and I promise they'd make it look like an accident," she says in a half-shouted voice, out of breath.

"You'd be able to get your sister back if you testified," he says winningly, but they both know it's half a lie.

"Yeah, if I don't get knifed in a parking lot by Montparnasse, beaten by Babet, or abducted and sold into prostitution by Claquesous," she laughs harshly.

He groans and pulls at his hair. "If you can't do it for yourself, can you at least do it for me?"

She stops and looks at him in sarcastic surprise. "Wow, that's really fucking selfish, Enjolras."

He rolls his eyes impatiently. "That's not what I meant, you always fucking do this, can you just listen for _five minutes, _Christ"—

"Right, because you know so much about this," she screeches, "because you grew up in an ivory tower and the closest to a bad situation you've ever gotten is me." She doesn't mean what she says, but the words pour out. "Do you actually love me, or am I a charity case, a poster girl for the dregs of New York society that can be elevated by your precious organization?"

And then the door slams and he's gone and she laughs because it's just so goddamn ridiculous that he's the one who ended up leaving. And she laughs because if she doesn't, she'll realize that it's serious because he's Enjolras and he _never_ leaves. And she laughs.

**Maybe**

Éponine doesn't make lists. She chooses to take things as they come as much as humanly possible. But after a stern talking-to from Cosette, she makes two columns on the back of a receipt and fights the urge to cringe as she scratches 'pro' and 'con' above each column. She fiddles with the pen and swallows the rising tide of absurdity, trying to focus on pure, logical implications. It's only seven, and court doesn't start til noon. She distracts herself, snapping the tattered hair elastic against her wrist and watching the patterns of clouds shift in her morning coffee.

Maybe it didn't have to be like this, she'll admit. She doubts very much that either of her siblings remembered what her own childhood was like, when there was enough to eat and she called her father Papa and he brought her presents and her mother doted on her. She slumps, chin in hand, leaving ink blots on the grubby receipt. Maybe she'll go to court and give her sister what she'd failed to give Gavroche. Maybe she won't go to court because it wouldn't make a damn difference.

Her fingers itch for her phone, dial Enjolras' number, and promptly drop the phone into the couch cushions.

**Hey #3**

You know you're holding your breath, but you slip in the back of the courtroom anyway, determinedly not looking around. The prosecutor calls her name once, twice, and you sigh until you catch a glimpse of blue. Her dress is probably too bright and tight for a courtroom, but her stockings don't have holes and her hair is neatly pinned up and she faces the court with angry determination glinting in her eyes.

She is unflinching and relentless and barely pauses for breath, her gaze not wavering from her father's, and your heart swells. She is impossible, stubborn, and very seldom recognizes a big picture, but she is yours.

The list of charges—even with the statute of limitations—is so impossibly long that the trial will not be finished today. But she climbs from the stand and marches straight out the door, clearly done. You bolt from your seat and catch her arm in the hallway. "Hey."

Her brown eyes turn to yours. "Hey."

"You came."

"Well…I thought that I might. I knew I had to." She shrugs, like she'd just admitted to going to the grocery store.

You let out your breath and set your back teeth. "I'm sorry for pushing you."

She nods. "I know." She fidgets. "I'm sorry for yelling."

"I know."

"Want to go home?"

"Very much." You take her arm in mockery of a gentleman, and she raises her eyebrow and laughs.

**So Anyway**

"Hello?" It's seven-thirty in the morning on Éponine's day off and it's a herculean effort not to snarl.

"Miss Thénardier? This is Celeste Simplice with New York Child Protective Services."

Éponine slumps back on the pillow, her heart in her throat. _Not Azelma, not Azelma, not Azelma._

"Miss Thénardier?" Éponine makes a quiet noise to let the woman know she's still on the line. "Miss Thénardier, I understand that a year ago, you sought custody of your siblings but were denied due to a prior arrest record."

"Look, is my sister okay?" Éponine breathed.

"What? Oh! Yes, she's fine. That's why I called. Due to—ahem—extenuating circumstances, we don't believe foster care would be fit for Azelma at this time. Pending examination by a social worker and a state-appointed psychiatrist, would you be in a position to financially and emotionally care for Azelma in your home?" Simplice says.

"Yes, yes, absolutely," Éponine says, bolting out of bed and grabbing the first clothes she can find. "When should I come get her? Where should I come get her?" The thoughts fall out of her head too quickly to be processed.

The woman on the other line laughs, not unkindly. "If you'll provide me an email address, we can set up appointments with the social worker and psychiatrist, but if everything checks out, you could have her by the end of the week."

Éponine stands in the bathroom to catch her breath, holding onto the countertop. Enjolras comes in and raises an eyebrow at her in the mirror. She manages a shaky smile and abruptly bursts into tears. His hands go around her shoulders. "What's wrong?" he says automatically.

But she laughs through her stupid tears. "How would you like to help me adopt a ten-year-old?"

He stares at her until understanding dawns on him. He smiles slightly. "I'd say we have some work to do."

**Light**

"Are you going to marry my sister?" Azelma asks with narrowed eyes.

"Marriage is an antiquated institution that seeks only to oppress women and keep men in positions of authority!" Éponine sings with a sly grin on her face, parroting the words Enjolras has said so many times before.

Azelma gives her sister the same sort of look Éponine herself gives when she is having _none_ of it, thank you very much, and Enjolras chuckles. "Do you think I should?" he looks at her over the edge of his glass.

She twirls her spaghetti and shrugs. "You cook good enough. If you marry her I can eat your cooking forever."

He laughs. "Éponine, your sister has just given her blessing for our marriage."

"Who said I'd marry you? You snore!" she calls from the kitchen.

"Who said I'd ask? You hog the covers!" he calls back.

Azelma wrinkles her face. "Can we not? Ugh."

Éponine swirls the lemonade powder in the pitcher of water and smiles. She'd confessed to her sister on the day she brought her home that she had no idea how to raise a ten-year-old, having tried very hard to forget being ten herself. Her sister had just given her the Thénardier stare and said she could raise herself. Éponine would never call herself maternal in any sense of the word, so it's good that Azelma can take care of herself. But she'll do the best she can. She looks over at Azelma challenging Enjolras in some sort of verbal war and grins and thinks that sometimes, things aren't so bad after all.

* * *

This story is now _complete! _Thanks for all your support! I've got some things in the works, so check back for them soon. In the meantime, if you'd like to check out my tumblr and come say hi, the name is nymeriatully. Love to you all.


End file.
